unfavorably giving him a net favorability rating of negative 20. so how is the apprisal going for you, mr. speaker? and we haven't even mentioned your cowardly withdrawal from the grand bargain negotiations in the summer of 2011 that would have avoided the mess of the last month. your embarrassing failure to even put your plan "b" to a vote because you failed to persuade your own party members to support it. and to top it all, your disgraceful blockage of a measure to provide desperately needed funds to those devastated by hurricane sandy. we could go on and on and on. but his record means nothing in congress where they have duly re-elected him as speaker for another term. which just goes to show, there really is one rule for ordinary american workers and another for that special class of political waste and mediocrity.

thanks so much for watching. "hardball" is next. deficit masquerade. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. i'm michael smerconish in new york for chris matthews. leading off tonight, bait and switch. if you watch the follies of the fiscal cliff negotiation, you surely heard one thing, republicans want to cut the deficit. well, here is a headline for you. no, they don't. according to our first two guests tonight, republicans are hiding behind deficit cutting to mask their true goals, protecting the rich from tacks and shrinking the size of government. keep that in mind when the next self-imposed crisis comes calling in a couple months. also, the best news of the day, the 112th congress is history, and it made history in many ways. the least productive, most

unpopular congress since people have been tracking this sort of thing. the 113th can't be worse, can it? plus, speaker john boehner was shamed into scheduling a vote on hurricane sandy relief after being humiliated by fellow republicans. is it possible that the house didn't vote because a southern rural right wing republican party just doesn't care about people in the mostly democratic northeast? and first amendment meets second amendment on the day children from sandy hook go back to school, a debate heats up over a newspaper that published the names and addresses of every gun permit holder in two new york area counties. now the paper wants to do it for a third county, but the county clerk says no way. and remember this? >> barack obama is the worst president in history. >> that's congressman ben quayle walking off camera. now he's walking out of the capitol. one of the many members of congress we won't see this term but whom you will see in the

"sideshow." we begin with whether republicans are pulling a bait and switch on the deficit. msnbc contributor jared bernstein was chief economist to vice president biden, and bob shrum is a democratic strategist. gentlemen, allow me to read to you something that former labor secretary robert reich published today. quote, if the ongoing war between republicans and democrats was really over those future budget deficits, you might expect republicans and democrats to be focusing on ways to hold down future health care costs. but they're not debating this because the federal deficit is not what this war is about. it's about the size of government. tea party republicans want the government to be much smaller. jared, i say, yes but surely a $16 trillion debt is serious business and requires attention. >> absolutely, and, in fact, if you look -- i don't really do the kind of pox on both their houses in this discussion because i don't think it's accurate. if you actually look at, for example, the offer that the president made in mid-december

or for that matter if you look at the president's budget, he actually accomplishes a stabilization of the debt as a share of gdp over the budget window, and it involves tax increases and spending cuts. where i think the hypocrisy is so clear here is that it is every nonpartisan budget analyst, i'm thinking of the congressional budget office, major scorekeeper in this town agrees, you simply can't achieve a sustainable budget path without both, and we have a group of republicans who have stone walled on both and were only recently forced into swallowing what is actually a relatively small tax increase in this fiscal deal after we've already cut a trillion in spending. >> educate a neophyte like myself. why should it be mesh shushed as a mers measure of gd p? >> as the economy and population gets larger we will by

definition spend more. i was arguing with someone today, i was pointing out in order to stabilize the debt, we need $1.2 trillion over the next ten years. that's just the way the math works out given these recent deals, and they started pulling their hair out saying $1 trillion, that's a big number. it's a half a percentage of gdp over the next ten years. so you have to look at this relative to the size of the economy or you'll just be swamped by big numbers that sound impossible but they're not. >> bob shrum, let's talk about the politics of this because if the house republicans are sort of in on the cabal, that's it's really not about the deficits, then i'm here to argue that surely their constituents are not because i take telephone calls from them each and every day. my father fits that mold of sort of an old-school republican who's terrified about a $16 trillion debt. >> well, two things about that. first of all, they want to hide behind the rubric of reducing spending. the truth is, and grover norquist has said this, sort of the high priest of republican economics and the tea party, they want to starve the

government. they want to shred the social safety net. they lost the last election. they lost the last century. they'd like to repeal much of the new deal, much of the great society, get rid of hk reform. but secondly, the hypocrisy, and jared is right about this, is extraordinary. where did most of this debt come from? it came from bush's two unfunded wars, from an unfunded medicare prescription drug benefit, from the decision that -- the set of decisions that led to the bush economic collapse in 2008. if you put all that together, that's responsible for most of this debt. and by the way, the people who are now talking about spending cuts and we really have to reduce the size of government were the folks who brought us all that. >> but are you saying that as a political matter they're aware of the concern that exists among their constituents, people who call a talk radio program like mine, and they are using that as a subterfuge to get to what they really desire, which is to reduce the size of government?

>> oh, sure, and, look, the reason that they talk about, quote, unquote, entitlement reform but the leadership itself at least will not put out specific proposals is because what they want to do is very unpopular even with constituents in very deep red districts. for example, people do not want large cuts in social security. they don't want to see social security privatized. they don't want to see medicare voucherized. they don't want to see the age on medicare raised. now, there are some changes you can make and jared could describe them as part of a grand bargain. that's not what these guys really want to do. >> i think to your point, and, jared, you know this, i'm sure, "new york times" columnist paul krugman has called republican economic rhetoric a con game. last month he observed this, when you put republicans on the spot and demand specifics about how they're going to make good on their posturing about spending and deficits, they come up empty. there's no there there. republicans claim to be for much smaller government but they've always attacked government spending in the be a tract, never coming clean with voters

about the reality that big cuts in government spending can happen only if we sharply curtail every -- all popular programs. and when i ra he had that quote, what i immediately think of is the debate where governor romney identified big bird because the best he could come up with in terms of a cut was pbs, which i guess makes the point. >> michael, it's a lot worse than that. because you may recall that president obama through the affordable care act generated $700 billion over ten years of savings in medicare. did mitt romney and paul ryan say that's exactly what we mean when we talk about stabilizing the entitlements or reforming the entitlements? no. they attacked him for those cuts and said we'll put them back in. so the hypocrisy is very deep. bob is absolutely right. this is a little economicy, but do this thought experiment. suppose you found an honest republican, and there are some, and you said we can balance the budget if we collect 25% of gdp

in revenue and spend 25% of gdp in outlays. those balance 0u9 but those percentages are considerably higher than what we usually spe spend. they would run from you in horror. they're not interested in balancing the budget. they're interested in shrinking the government. however, when it comes to plans, krugman is partially right. there are republicans who talk about things like block granting medicaid, who talk about premium support. in every case what do those do? they go after poor people while they're cutting the heck out of taxes for reach pimm. >> concern about the debt and deficit does not only come from the right. bob shrum, the president, as part of his common parlance, is always today talking about the need to control the debt and deficit. >> as jared said earlier, he presented a budget that would stabilize the debt and then begin to reduce it over a period of time. the gop and the house just wasn't interested in it, paid no attention to it. in december he was willing to enter into a grand bargain, he

was willing to enter into a grand bargain before. what you have here is a republican party in thrall to the tea party. you have a speaker of the house who is now a zombie. he's less a speaker than a ventriloquist for the tea party. and it's very hard to get things done. i never thought i would say this, but it's quite extraordinary that mitch mcconnell stepped forward, engaged with vice president biden, who by the way did a spectacular job, and that's how we averted going off the fiscal cliff. now, what's going to happen when we get to the renewal of the debt is not clear because the demand on all these people. >> i want to quickly talk about that. please take a look at what republican senator pat toomey said yesterday on "morning joe" about republican obstructionism over the debt ceiling. >> our opportunity here is on the debt ceiling. the president's made it very clear, he doesn't even want to have a discussion about it because he knows this is where we have leverage. we republicans need to be willing to tolerate a temporary partial government shutdown, which is what that could mean. >> so jared bernstein, if the

president stands his ground and his ground thus far has been i'm not negotiating on that issue, where are we going? >> well, unless -- when the president says i'm not negotiating, what i very, very deeply hope he means is that i will override by dint of my constitutional authority those crazies who would default not only damaging our economy and defaulting on debt that's held around the world but really, you know, hurting the global economy. and so when he says i won't negotiate, i take that to mean i'm not going to play that game, i'm not going to let them hold us hostage. listen, i got to make one quick point. all of this talk about debt, fiscal policy, the deficits, i get that you get calls about this stuff, i do, too. but 9 thing i hear much more about is the economy, is the unemployment rate, the jobs, is earnings, family income. and one of the things this argument has done, it's gotten so twisted that politicians no longer think about what matters

most to people, and bob probably knows this, too. if you look at the polls, all of those things i mentioned are way above the deficit in terms of people's primary concerns. >> bob, a final political question real quick if i might. this debt ceiling issue, i think that what isn't communicated sufficiently to the american people is that we're talking about making good on obligations that the government has already made. >> exactly. >> congress already voted to spend this money. if you've defaulted on this, if you destroy the full faith and credit of the united states, you can have an event that could be lehman-like, the collapse of lehman brothers in 2008 and send the world economy off the edge. >> i just wanted to make na clear. thank you, jared and bob. up next, good riddance to the 112th congress which was the least effective congress in decades but will the 113th congress just sworn in today be any better? this is "hardball," the place for politics. >> and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter so help you god. >> i do.

>> congratulations, you're now a member of the 13th congress. aig? we said we were going to turn it around, and we did. woman: we're helping joplin, missouri, come back from a devastating tornado. man: and now we're helping the east coast recover from hurricane sandy. we're a leading global insurance company, based right here in america. we've repaid every dollar america lent us. everything, plus a profit of more than $22 billion. for the american people. thank you, america. helping people recover and rebuild -- that's what we do. now let's bring on tomorrow. meet the 5-passenger ford c-max hybrid. when you're carrying a lot of weight, c-max has a nice little trait, you see, c-max helps you load your freight, with its foot-activated lift gate. but that's not all you'll see, cause c-max also beats prius v, with better mpg. say hi to the all-new 47 combined mpg c-max hybrid.

john boehner won re-election as house speaker today, but not every republican was behind him. nine republicans voted for somebody else, and two of them, georgia's paul brown and louis gohmert of texas, actually voted for ex-florida congressman alan west. remember him? the guy who said there are about 80 communists in the democratic caucus? brown and gohmert are two of the more outspoken members of congress. back in september brown said evolution was straight from the pit of hell, and gohmert, who has repeatedly questioned president obama's citizenship, has suggested the obama administration is in cahoots with the muslim brotherhood. we'll be right back. are choosin® because it helps you keep doing what you love. no wonder it's america's #1 selling pain reliever. you took action, you took advil®.

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you come here humbled by the

opportunity to serve, if you've come here to be the determined voice of the people, if you've come here to carry the standard of leadership demanded not by our constituents but by the times, then you've come to the right place. [ applause ] >> welcome back to "hardball." that was newly re-elected speaker john boehner encouraging members to rise above partisanship and get to work as the 113th congress was sworn in. and not a moment too soon. it would be hard to do worse than the 112th. they were the least productive congress on record passing far fewer bills than the last two preceding congresses and even fewer than the famous do-nothing congress of 1947-1948. but it's not just they were unproductive, they were actively counterproductive as ezra klein points outs in bloomberg today. the 112th almost shut down government, almost breached the

debt ceiling, and almost went over the fiscal cliff. all crises of their own making. ezra klein is also an msnbc political analyst and "washington post" columnist. robert costa is the washington editor at national review and a cnbc contributor. gentlemen, the 112th congress was not only unproductive, it was hugely unpopular. for comparison's sake, the irs, nixon during watergate and bp during the oil spill all had higher popularity ratings than this congress, and yet, ezra klein, if the objective was to thwart all things obama, you could say they were immembersly successful. >> and yet they weren't because the over arching strategy was to eventually thwart obama himself, to get him not re-elected, to allow mitt romney or whoever was the republican nominee for president, to become president in 2012 thus fulfilling what senate minority leader mitch mcconnell once referred to as his top priority. that didn't work at all. the republican brand was so

tarnished in part because of the actions of the 112th congress, in part because of the way republicans acted around things like the debt ceiling, that in the end president obama was re-elected with a quite large margin and democrats got more votes in the senate and even in the house despite the fact that they didn't win back control of the majority due to redistricting and the apportionment of house districts nationwide. if the overarching strt ji was to have nothing happen in washington and have people take it out on the democrats, that didn't work out for them. >> take for instance the fiscal cliff situation, we have a short tn term fix. that you would attribute to the obstructionism in the house that he faced, wouldn't you? >> the fiscal cliff was constructed at least in part by the 112th, but again it didn't work out very well for them. nobody got a big deal. but at this point in time we'll see how the next deal turns out, president obama and the dnts got $630 billion in revenue and there was not a spending cut added. of course, to that edge lenger you need to add the 2011 budget

control act which included more than a trillion dollars in spending cuts but there's not much evidence republicans have had a great time achieving their policies in the last year. >> robert, i know you were there today for the re-election of speaker boehner. any backstory of significance? >> it's a major backstory. speaker boehner came into the election today trying to reclaim the gavel and he was able to do it with relative ease. he got 220 votes on the house floor, but what happened was a lot of drama on the house floor as that name by name roll call was called. you had nine house conservatives vote for different people wp we heard about alan west, david walker, the former comptroller general, there was a lot of disarray. you had the big names like paul ryan, kevin mccarthy, they all backed the speaker. bain ser going to have a tough time moving forward controlling his caucus. they showed many of them are willing to vote against him. >> is the 113th going to be different in any significant way

than the congress that's just left us? >> i think it's going to be quite different, and we can already tell why. in a conference meeting yesterday, john boehner went into front of his conference and he said no more grand bargains, no more closed door negotiations with the president. that was really the story of the 112th congress. you had speaker boehner almost detached from his cause cuss going to the white house trying to huddle with the president, get a grand bargain. that collapsed. boehner went in front of his group and colleagues and said no more of that. that means it's going to be very hard to have some kind of fiscal deal in the new congress. >> ezra, to what do you attribute this climate of partisanship. much has been written and said about it particularly in the last couple months. >> look, congressional polarization, party polarization is a long-term trend in american political life. it has a lot to do with the break down of race as a governing principle. southern democrats who were quite conservative but staying there for reasons related to

civil rights and seniority went into the republican party. and race began to fall away as the organizing principle in life. so the parties became more ideological separate from one another. democrats agreeing with democrats, republicans agreeing with republicans. as that happened, they began to act as units. we don't have a political system set up very well for parties to act as units. the founders didn't want there to be parties at all. they were very against factions even though they went on to create a number of them. the 112th was a culmination of a lot of trends we've been seeing over the last 50 40 or 50 years. and the composition of the congress in which you had a republican speaker from the republican minority in the house. you had a very slim democratic majority in the senate that was subject to the bifilibuster and democratic president the republicans were trying to defeat was a perfect cocktail for this paralysis and polarization but i'm not optimistic about the 113th because even if they do try to do things through regular order, these same underlying dynamics

are still governing what's happening in congress right now. >> one of the things that's troubling, the national journal has done a great job in documenting this by taking the ideological temperature of congress for the last 30 years, and they find that every democrat, i'll focus on the senate, every democrat in the senate is more liberal than every republican. every republican more conservative than every democrat and you might think, well, isn't that always the case? it isn't. if you go back to the reagan '80s, 60% of the senate was somewhere in the middle, and couple that now with the nate silver analysis from just a couple days ago with the 538 blog where he points out that in the house of 435 districts, i think he said 35 of them are truly competitive, and the rest are not. they're hyperdistricts now. bob, you wanted to say something on this issue. >> with respect to both of you, those are compelling arguments, but there are two reasons i think there is hope for this new congress. one is that john boehner won re-election today. he was able to win even though there is a part of his caucus that is very much to the right,

very conservative, and another part of his caucus, 85 members of the house republican conference voted to support the senate fiscal cliff deal. things are polarized, i'm not going to argue that. but the point is 85 republicans did vote for a deal, did vote for something that was bipartisan. does that mean everything is going to be perfect moving ahead? of course not. >> robert, costa's glass is half full, main is half empty. ezra, is your half full or empty. >> i don't have any water in my glass at all. if this fiscal cliff deal is success, that is not a good way to govern. it's not how to run a rail road. >> gentlemen, thank you for being here. >> thank you. up next, a special farewell to members of congress we won't miss. and one or two we will in the "sideshow." if you want to follow me on twitter, you just need to figure out how to spell smerconish. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ male announcer ] what are happy kids made of?

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back to "hardball." now to the "sideshow." today marks the start of the 113th congress, and that means we bid farewell to departing members. some are leaving by choice, others failed to win their bids for re-election. from the crowd that wanted to come back but last, there's arizona republican ben quayle who brought us this gem of a campaign ad in 2010. >> barack obama is the worst president in history. somebody has to go to washington and knock the hell out of the place. my name is ben quayle and i approve this message. >> this time around quayle faced a primary challenge due to redistricting and didn't make it to the general. joe walsh and alan west also got the boot. they haven't been strangers to the "hardball sideshow."

>> don't blame banks and don't blame the marketplace for the mess we're in right now. i am tired of hearing that crap. you know what, this pisses me off. too many people don't listen. i need more cough. >> there are about 78 to 81 members of the democrat party that are members of the communist party. >> now so some senators who opted not to run for re-election. jon kyl of arizona. do you remember this? >> if you want an abortion, you go to planned parenthood and that's well over 90% of what planned parenthood does. >> that 90% figure is off by only 90%. as a kyl aide more or less admitted later saying, quote, his remark was not intended to be a factual statement. on to north dakota, democrat kent con rod, who is retiring and taking his dog, dakota, with him. according to "the new york times," dakota was often toted around by a staff member who tried valiantly to maintain his

dignity as he cuddled the fluff dwri pet while its owner voted. kay bailey hutchinson also retiring from the snat will no longer be seen strolling the halls accompanied by that day's purse boy. that's the nickname given to the aides two were tasked with following the texas republican around carrying, believe it or not, her purse. and can't forget about south carolina's jim demint who's peacing out to make money and run the heritage foundation a conservative think tank. finally massachusetts democrat barney frank, the outgoing congressman who will remember for his total honesty in any situation, even here when he took to the house floor during a debate about air travel costs for then-speaker nancy pelosi. >> i just want to explain i hadn't really been expecting to be here but as i was walking by, i thought i heard someone knelling the plane, boss, the plane and i wanted to come in and see what was happening. >> thank you for the memories. we will miss some of you.

up next, why did house republicans wait so long to vote on hurricane sandy relief? could it be that a party that's mostly southern and rural doesn't care about the people in the mainly democratic northeast? jur watching "hardball," the place for politics. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool

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i'm amanda drury with your cnbc market wrap. with a come down for wall after yesterday's big rally. minutes showing disagreement on how long quantitative easing will continue. the dow using 21 points. the s&p losing 3 and the nasdaq dropping about 12. u.s. auto sales rose 9% in december though and analysts say it could be the best year in sales since before the recession. and that is it from cnbc. now it's back over to "hardball."

the fact is this dismissive attitude that was shown last night toward new york, new jersey, i can't imagine that type of indifference, that type of disregard, that cavalier attitude being shown to any other part of the country. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was island republican cogman peter king earlier this week outraged by the delayed vote for sandy storm relief funds. blue state republicans charged the republican-led house with postponing the vote because of bias toward their home states and, in fact, northeastern republicans like king are a dying breed. back in the 90th congress, that was 1967-1968, there were 47 house republicans in the northeastern united states. in today's new 113th congress, just 26. can the gop remain a relevant party if it becomes increasingly

conservative, rural, and southern and appears to only care about their own? eugene robinson is a columnist nor "the washington post" and an msnbc political analyst. susan milligan is contributing editor to q "u.s. news & world report." i have a quicken and egg question for you. what drives the divide within the republican party, geography or ideology? >> good question. i think it's the chicken and egg answer, which is i don't know. one drives the other drives the other drives the other. initially the republican party became a southern party through the southern strategy pioneered by lee atwater years and years ago. that became kind of self-perpetuating and, of course, state legislatures started turning, republican seats got gerrymandered into safe republican seats. so there are a lot of factors there, but basically we're at a point now where the red states

get redder and the blue states get bluer. >> susan, a lot of self-sorting at both ends of the spectrum i think is eugene's point. what accounts for that? >> well, first of all, i think people are self-selecting their communities. year not only states but jurisdictions are getting redder and bluer and that's reflected in congress. i think there's something else happening here, too, with immigration and with just, you know, just the racial breakdown of the country, the demographics. i think there's sort of more and more ever a resentment from some of these parts of america that a lot of people in the media used to call real america against these areas that are, you know, more ethnically diverse, more african-americans, more latinos, states that want gay marriage, that they perceive as liking big government. it gets rolled up into one big pass and i think peter king has a point where there's a sense that the northeast is this alien part of the country that doesn't live the way people think real americans should live. >> on that note, let me show you

something else. congressman king and new jersey governor chris christie were outraged for what they saw to be this anti-northeastern bias and here is some of what they had to say. >> republicans have no trouble finding new york when it comes to raising money. and i would just say anyone from new york and new jersey who contributes one penny to congressional republicans after this should have their head examined. >> new jersey and new york are perennially among the most generous states in the nation to our fellow states. we vote for disaster relief for other states in need. we are donor states spending -- sending much more to washington, d.c., than we ever get back in federal spending. despite this history of unbridled generosity in our hour of desperate need, we have been left waiting for help six times longer than the victims of katrina with no end in sight. >> eugene, read the tea leaves for me. what is the real explanation as to this fumble on the part of the republican leadership in the house? was it a scheduling snafu or was

it some inherent bias? >> well, you could call it bias. i think john boehner was just nervous about bringing up a bill that some of his more rural and conservative members would have a question about right after the fiscal cliff deal. i think he was, frankly, worried that today's vote might have turned out differently, today's vote for speaker might have turned out differently had he done that right then. and so, you know, you could say it's arguable that certainly for self-preservation that was a smart thing to do, but it clearly reinforced this feeling on the part of the few remaining northeastern republicans that they are the stepchildren of the party and that, you know, they're trying to get elected in what are pretty blue jurisdictions and they're not getting any help. >> here is something that will underscore that thought, susan. republican congressman tom price of georgia, a conservative that the national review last month called boehner's biggest threat,

told wmal radio yesterday that the northeastern republicans were to plame for what many conservatives believe was a bad deal to avert the fiscal cliff. listen to what he said. >> the vote is really fascinating. if you look at the votes that were yes on the republican side, there were 85 of them, and 70 of them come from blue states. so i really think, and i have been talking about this for a couple months now, i think this is a red state/blue state issue when we were talking about previous, quote, solutions. it really broke down in our conference between those republicans who were from red states and those who were from blue states. it's a different conversation we need to have within our own conference as we move forward with the kinds of positive solutions that i thr are out there. >> in other words he's castigating within his own party those coming from blue states. >> and there's always been regionalism in congress, usually around energy issue, coal state people versus oil state people and so forth, but this is a spending issue that becomes more ideological and even cultural than even just fiscal.

so, you know, they look at the northeasterners and think they're big spenders. usually with something like disaster aid, that kind of stuff is put aside. as congressman king pointed out, it took six days for them -- excuse me, ten days to vote for that aid for katrina and it's been two months and, yes, speaker boehner i think was concerned he couldn't ask his caucus to vote for this right after they voted for that fiscal cliff, but i think some of the democrats i talked to today on the hill said or the northeasterners said he could have had this vote a month and a half ago. >> could web having a similar conversation about the composition of the house? >> i don't think so. democrats have been remarkably united. in the previous congress before boehner took over, nancy pelosi got stuff done and continues to keep the democratic caucus quite united. no, we couldn't have that same conversation right now. >> a political piece title the

rage of the northeastern gop caught our eye. it brings up an important point. quote, regardless of how the debate plays out, you can bet the issue will be revisited in 2014 when every house republican holding a storm-damaged district will be attacked for the delay. and the northeast will again be the first place the democrats will look to in their efforts to find vulnerable gop targets. susan, do you think that that's true, that a road map is being provided now to the democratic party for what's to come in the midterm? >> absolutely. when the republicans had a majority in the senate and how they built their majority in the house, it was through the northeast and they lost two seats in new hampshire in this last election. they lost a senate seat in massachusetts, lost a senate seat in maine, and they can't keep majorities or build a majority in the senate unless they open up a little bit more. look, the democrats did this out west. they ran pro-gun democrats out best because they knew that was the only way they could get seats out there. you can't be that doctrine and

get and keep your seats. on the day the children wept back to sandy hook the newspaper that published the names and addresses of local gun holders wants to publish more. the first amendment meets the second september amendment. that's ahead. amendment. that's ahead. [ female announcer ] how do you define your moment?

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congress also marks the return of illinois senator mark kirk. senator xishg suffered a stroke last january but today he returned to congress and climbed the 45 steps of the united states capitol. kirk, a republican who first came to the senate in 2010 after winning a special election to fill out the last few months of barack obama's term, and then he won his own senate seat beginning in 2011. we'll be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] how could switchgrass in argentina, change engineering in dubai, aluminum production in south africa, and the aerospace industry in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy.

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different school in a neighboring town. in nearby westchester and rockland counties, suburbs of new york city, a controversy has e rupped over the decision by a local newspaper to publish an interactive database of all residents with handgun permits. here is what that map looks like on their website. each red dot indicates someone with a handgun permit and if you click on one, it shows that person's name and address. now, the move sparked outrage by many, not just in suburban new york, but around the country. the newspaper, the journal news, defended itself in a statement saying, quote, we knew publication of the database would be controversial but we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the newtown shootings. in nearby putnam county, officials refused to hand over information about handgun owners to the paper despite new york law saying that information is part of the public record. mary ellen o'dell is the putnam county executive. mark green is a radio talk show

host and former public advocate of new york city. miss o'dell, if i were to walk into the office where those records are kept as a citizen of that community, i imagine i'd get access to them. so why shouldn't that same right extend to the local newspaper? >> well, it's a -- that's not really i think a fair example of what we're trying to argue against today. you know, we're really looking at this as a privacy issue. we're looking to make sure that our constituents' safety is primary, it's paramount to us in putnam county. most of our residents are law enforcement or first responders. we have a lot of veterans and, you know, we want to make sure that their families are safe and themselves, that they're not put at risk because of this. and i just want to say on the other side to this, it's not just about those who follow the process and who legally have obtained, you know, pistol permits. we're talking about those jids, our residents, who choose not to

have a weapon at home. we feel that this release of this database actually compromises their safety. >> would your success compromise other sunshine law provisions? i mean, the access we all enjoy to property tax records or political contributions or megan's law by way of example? if you're successful, might people now take a look at other in the internet age in which we live, other laws of access and say maybe we should do away with this or that? >> it's interesting, you know, when you take a look at this, the reason why i think that this has become such a heightened issue is just because of the times we're at. you know, social media now, the access of the internet that affords people quick information, and that's why we feel that our residents would be put at such a risk should their names and addresses be released in addition to those who are not. and, you know, really what we're saying here is this law is a law that could be, should be modified to just make sure that

our residents, their families, their concerns are put first. >> mark, what do you make of this? the "new york times" wrote about the controversy and then was swamped by reader's reaction. . >> on the other hand, somebody else wrote, "yes, the records are public, but most criminals are not going to be on line looking to see if a particular address has an owner with a gun. it's nobody's damn business. ". >> even if a law-abiding person has a person, has a gun, adam lanza's mother was legal and still killed. i'm a lawyer and believe in the right to privacy. this is in the public domain. the information is pubically

filed. of course, the newspaper had a right to publish public information. the question is was it right as a matter of judgment for them to do that. if we have a megan's law, and i think everybody might agree, that if you're a convicted child molester, i think everybody might want to know that because they're in their home safe, but they may come out. same thing with guns. there may be people who think the more concealed weapons, the better, fine. live in texas and florida. >> my kids have shown to me on my iphone that you can put in your geographic area that brings up every perp within miles. theoretically, people want to know if there are gun owners in their area -- and i'm not equating perps with gun owners. >> thank you. >> i don't think that it's fair to compare someone who legally obtains a pistol or a permitted

handgun in their home and took the time to do the training and followed through compliance and has vetted the process to a convicted sex offender. >> here's a better example. a better example is if i wanted to take a look at the political contributions of all of my neighbors and they wanted to take a look at mine, they could do so because i've made lawful confirmations and so have they. >> i think it's comparing apples to oranges here. what we're really saying here is we took an oath, we swore my e le elected officials to uphold the law. what we're asking here is for people to look into how this invasion of privacy, if you will, can put our residents and their families at risk and harm. >> very quickly, mark, take the final world. i only have 30 seconds. go ahead and i'll give it to you.

>> look, people who live around it feel at risk. it's not that they're law-abiding and got a permit. fine, adam lanza got a permit. if we publish private donations, well, thent, as a neighbor, i want to know how many handguns are in my area which could be stolen and put at risk my family. >> to be continued. i have to shut it down. it's a great debate. >> the law requires it be made public. change the law. >> thank you. >> mary ellen, thank you for being here. mark green, we appreciate your time. >> when we return, allow me to update you on the penn state scandal. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. who are you again? daniels, sir. accounts. who's this? this is daniels. key player over in accounts. ♪ daniels. director of accounts. [ male announcer ] the all-new nissan sentra. [ daniels ] good luck in there!

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let me finish tonight with an update about penn state. last june, jerry sandusky was convicted of those 45 of 48 counts that he faced involving 10 young victims. and then last july, the ncaa, relying on the investigation by former f.b.i. director lewis free, fined penn state $60 million. penn state did not appeal, and, at the time, pennsylvania governor tom corbit, a member of the board of trustees, also accepted the decision by the ncaa. well, yesterday, co rrkcorbit f lawsuit for what he calls over-reaching and unlawful sanctions placed on penn state and he seeks to set aside the $60 million fine.

but is the lawsuit really a case of hardball politics? first, corbit is up for election in 2013 and right now, his poll numbers are poor. penn state fans, they're an important part of the pennsylvania electorate. corbit did not consult the newly-elected attorney general, kathleen kane. when kane takes office in two weeks, it's expected that she'll deliver on a campaign promise to investigate why the sandusky investigation, which was begun by corbit in 2008, took so long. as it was noted in today's "daily beast," that in normal circumstances, a predatory animal would have been arrested after the first allegation. that would have gotten him off the street and nothing would have been in further investigation. instead, a